About the Project
The Cold War was about dreams and nightmares: dreams for a better world and nightmares of catastrophic destruction. It was a global conflict that began in the wake of the Second World War and ended with the peaceful revolutions of 1989-90 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Cold War was fought as contest over a way of life as much as it was an armed confrontation. It combined the ideological contest between capitalist liberal democracies and communist dictatorships with unprecedented levels of armaments and military conflicts worldwide. As such, the Cold War had a significant impact on society and culture.
For most, the Cold War was a war in name only – and yet its manifestations are everywhere from nuclear bunkers, weapons installations, radars and airfields, to protest movements like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, to folk songs, cartoons and images or the design of telephones and razors.
How can we exhibit the dreams and nightmares of the Cold War through material objects? How can the Cold War be exhibited as a whole without focusing on any one element? How relevant is Cold War history and memory today?
Materialising the Cold War is a collaboration between National Museums Scotland and the University of Stirling. The project will explore how the Cold War, its global experience and heritage are described in museums and how museums can adapt to tell this story in future. The research will achieve this in two ways: first, by evaluating existing displays and collections together with key partners in the UK, in Germany and in Norway, and second by creating a new, ground-breaking special exhibition at NMS, between 13 Jul 2024 – 26 Jan 2025, on the basis of these findings.
Funded by a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this three-year project will leave a legacy of ideas and practices developed through academic research, events, a schools’ programme, a major exhibition and publications.
Cold War Museology: How museums shape our understanding of the Cold War
In June 2023, over 60 participants from historical, heritage and memory studies backgrounds explored the challenges of conceptualising the Cold War in a museum context at a conference held at the National Museum of Scotland. Click here to read Dr Jessica Douthwaite’s reflections on the conference.
Publications
- Samuel J.M.M. Alberti & Holger Nehring (2021): The Cold War in European museums – filling the ‘empty battlefield’. International Journal of Heritage Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2021.1954054
- Jessica Douthwaite (2022): ‘Is Radioactive Iodine Present Equally in the Cream on Milk as in the Milk Itself?’: Lonely Sources and the Gendered history of Cold War Britain. Gender & History, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12643
- Holger Nehring (2022), War Times: Layers of History in Russia’s War against Ukraine. Labour History Review, https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2022.11
Stories from Cold War Hotspots
It has been over 30 years since the Cold War ended with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the time has gone from “is” to “was” – an historical period to look back on. Many people are still alive who remember it vividly, but some not have heard about it at all.
Stories from Cold War Hotspots aimed to collect stories, memories, and perceptions of the Cold War from our visitors. Between 26 July to 13 August, visitors to the National Museum of Flight recorded their own Cold War story in a Cold War Hotspots recording booth.
Project Partners
- University of Stirling
- Imperial War Museums
- Royal Air Force Museum
- Allied Museum
- Norwegian Aviation Museum
